Author: zuric

This week’s readings “NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS FROM BROWNSVILLE TO BLOOMBERG COMMUNITY CONTROL AND ITS LEGACY” by Heather Lewis seems like the perfect work for the last response because it covers a lot of ground we have looked into in the past few weeks/months and covers it all over a long span of time.  the reading brings up many specific examples of oppressed minorities discriminated against in places such as East Harlem and how the situation came to be and was fought by the parents and the communities. this article is also the first reading in a while that goes into details of the political nature of the changes make and how political pressure influenced these policy changes. one interesting aspect the article brings up is the idea of non-english speakers and bilingual teaching, which is something one would think would have come up a while ago, as New York is nothing is not a multilingual city;  advertisements on the subway always translate into like three other languages minimum and sometimes aren’t even primarily in english.  this lingual aspect of schools is another interesting aspect that seems to tie in heavily to a lot of what has been discussed in this class so more on this topic might prove helpful to the research we are doing and the questions we are trying to answer. the overall tone of the reading seems to be emphasizing how hard making significant changes for the better are and how much it was always a long battle. even when communities assemble behind and idea, it is still a long process the decentralize schools and then later to recentralize them. overall, this reading provides a lot of info on the types of issues we have been discussing a lot in this course as well as introducing a new one in the form of bilingual schools and teachers, and thus gives a lot of useful info towards the learning goals of this course.

Growing up, i had alway valued the idea that all people are given equal opportunity to move up in the world and some simply take better advantage of it then others. as i grew up i realized this was far from true, as my eyes were opened to the rampant discrimination and inequality in educational opportunities. “All educational credentials have not been created equal, nor do all citizens have equal access to educational opportunities. Race, gender, ethnicity, social class, and other background factors remain important in the process of attaining educational credentials” claims Floyd M. Hammack in his article Paths to Legislation or Litigation for Educational Privilege: New York and San Fransisco Compared. This reading agrees with a lot of class discussions we have had on the nature of the opportunity gap for minorities and provides additional insight into the issue by comparing New York City which has been the focus of this course with San Fransisco which we have heard little about before this.

How this article discusses the long history of elite high school acceptance has changed over the years in both New York City and San Fransisco also seems to just add to all we have learned about the history of unequal opportunity caused by discriminatory practices intended to have white christian families and their children monopolize good education.  even up to the modern day, the article points out many issues such as how certain races must score much higher than others to be considered for exclusive high schools, which, while meaning to be accommodating to races typically disenfranchised and with less opportunity to learn, has negatively impacted individuals of races that typically already performed well such as Asians and whites by raising the threshold for them. it almost seems like people are trying to fix the problem at the wrong end of it: rather than ensuring everyone has equal tools to have equal possibility of scoring well on the shsat and thus getting into their high school of choice, races are given different threshold that makes it easier for them to into these selective schools and equality/representation is created almost artificially at the highschool level.

This weeks Readings “Power, Protests, and the Public Schools: Jewish and African American struggles in New York City” by Melissa Weiner explains in depth the history of how school in New York City were segregated against jewish and African American citizens as well as how these methods of segregation were enforced by the governance, fought by the parents and communities, and eventually changed due to the massive backlash by these minorities.  these examples provide interesting context and examples we can use for our research projects as it shows how these disenfranchising systems came into place and how they were eventually overthrown.

in the case of the jewish community, most of their subjugation and mistreatment was at the hands of the Gary plan which was initiated in the early 1900’s and basically aimed to train jewish and other disenfranchised minorities into disposable interchangeable workers only useful because of their easily trainable skill with zero upwards mobility. the plan also noticeably tried to americanize students and subdue the culture of their (usually immigrant) parents and in some cases tried to teach jewish children the new testament.  the plan was eventually discontinued when the jewish community started making it into a major political issue and refusing to vote for any mayoral candidate who wouldn’t promise to change the system.

African American students were also treated terribly in school systems a little later in the century, as their school were often very rundown placed with heavily overcrowded classes and poor teachers. The Harlem 9 tried to increase the amount of experienced and qualified teachers as well as the budget of the schools, as at the time, budget per black student was less than a third of the budget per white student, but the battle for these changes was long fought and took many years to bear significant results.

comparing the 2 disenfranchised groups, it is interesting how much more quickly and effectively the jewish rallied and were heard by those in governance and got the changes they desired compared to their African American counterparts. perhaps it is because the jews, although often treated as if they are second class citizens and shouldn’t be considered such, are still white and harder to distinguish and alienate than the African Americans. these examples will probably prove useful for us in our projects and when we attempt to find a positive change for schools in New York City.